Check out my automated niche blog business model (it really works)

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by new guy

Keith, I just found this post tonight and have now read the whole thing. In the meantime, I set up a new domain and just installed Wordpress to get started. I have a question about your affiliate links. On a single blog, do you only link out to one affiliate product? And do you do so on every instance of a certain keyword? This part is a bit gray to me.

Hi new guy!

Thanks for posting - to answer your questions:

1. It depends on the blog/niche. There are a couple of blogs that only have one product. I think I even have one that has none, but that's just because I couldn't find any that converted well. The more content you have, the more you can get away with diversified products. Most commonly, I have about 5-10 categories per blog, with 1 or 2 feeds per category. Each category is based on a single keyword (each keyword is related to the blog's niche). Each category is usually based around 1 product, though sometimes more.

2. Yes, if you're using WP-O-Matic for relinking, it will be every instance. That's the only option available there. If you're using something else like SEO Smart Links, there are more options. I believe that one limits itself to the number of links per post.

Best bet is to just start messing with it, and do what makes sense for your site concept. The idea here is not to make something spammy, but to arrange these elements to make it look like a human-controlled site. But you also don't want to make it perfect. Let it be mediocre, but don't let it look spammy, or else no one will even want to look at it.

[davo]

Keith,

Thank you so much for generously sharing your knowledge in here.

I too got into the autoblogging thing, using Adam's PGInsider and set up many blogfarms, and saw the whole thing collapse and die when Google decided there were too many splogs out there.

So I killed off my 200 sites and went back to around 20. But I still don't make decent money, even trying to be a good "white hat" boy.

I shall now try and get some of my mostly unused domains going using your methodology. But I'd better be careful, since they are all on the same host and ip. Maybe I'm saving so much money on hosting that I'm cutting my own throat? I dunno.

Kind regards,

Davo

PS: If you plan on selling a guide or some tutoring, then please count me IN. Thanks.

[tommygadget]

I discuss the IP problem on my IM blog. Go to the hosting page and see. I use HE because they give me 16 domains with 16 unique IPs.

TomG.

Originally Posted by davo

Keith,

Thank you so much for generously sharing your knowledge in here.

I too got into the autoblogging thing, using Adam's PGInsider and set up many blogfarms, and saw the whole thing collapse and die when Google decided there were too many splogs out there.

So I killed off my 200 sites and went back to around 20. But I still don't make decent money, even trying to be a good "white hat" boy.

I shall now try and get some of my mostly unused domains going using your methodology. But I'd better be careful, since they are all on the same host and ip. Maybe I'm saving so much money on hosting that I'm cutting my own throat? I dunno.

Kind regards,

Davo

PS: If you plan on selling a guide or some tutoring, then please count me IN. Thanks.

[Guru]

Hi

I have created a test blog to test. when I am getting post from rss feeds its only 2-3 lines as most of source provider provide only that much as feed. Is that normal or you can get long full article in your blog from these rss providers? Am I doing something wrong?

THanks

G

p.s. still trying to learn about cron job etc...

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Guru

Hi

I have created a test blog to test. when I am getting post from rss feeds its only 2-3 lines as most of source provider provide only that much as feed. Is that normal or you can get long full article in your blog from these rss providers? Am I doing something wrong?

THanks

G

p.s. still trying to learn about cron job etc...

Some rss feeds only provide an excerpt, some provide more. It's up to whoever publishes the feed. Look around on google for "keyword based rss feeds" and you should find a lot of resources, and give yourself a better chance of finding more substantial content.

Can you let me know more specifically what you need help with as far as cron goes? I'd love to help.

P.S. For everyone else, I've been testing that Utopia Cron plugin I mentioned, and it works great. All that's needed for it to trigger the fetch is someone visiting your site. You're going to do that enough times yourself while setting it up. If you're submitting your feed to places regularly, your own visits will keep you covered for updates by the time your first few visitors should be arriving. (Based on my own admittedly limited experience, that is). Anyway, the point is, if you can't set up a unix cron, and WP-O-Matic isn't just updating itself, you can follow the included pseudo cron instructions and use Utopia instead of the website in the instructions.

Hope that alternative helps anyone having trouble with the automation part of this setup.

And now, since I can't tell if I've stayed up too late, or woken up too early - I'm off to bed.

[Guru]

Hi KK,
That was quick reply.

I think I am finding two problem in your given process

1) getting rss feed provider which will provide long ( atleast 15-20 lines ) content. but as you suggested I should look more and I should be able to find that on google.

I tired so far yahoo feed, google news feed, google blog feed, ezinearticles.com feeds but i will look at more places and try to find good feeds.

2) Second major problem is updating the blog using wp-o-matic using word press/cron etc..

In one of my test blog I used WP-o-matic internal function for cron job ( unix base ) I just clicked on the check box ( which was there ) and after that it should be doing itself ( I guess )

after doing this I selected to get 2 post from the RSS every 3 hours and I left it for 12 hours but I didn't get any post in my blog.

I got only 2 post from the rss feed in the beginning of starting campaign in WPOP ( by fetching)

why I didn't get more post after 12 hours or so?

I think cron is not working above way ( which should be working as there was no error )

Now even its not working when I am checking the blog it should have fetched few posts from the rss source ( am I right? ) ( in WPOP language ""pseudo-cron web-based approach takes place"") when I m checking my own blog.

----
Now after it didn't work I started new blog and didn't do that unix based cron in WPOP and install utopia cron plugin. and asked it to read my cron page every 15 minutes to fetch 2 rss feed and post in the blog but even after few hours only post I got, which I fetched at the time of creating campaigns.. ( so same problem )

I created 3 campaigns and using CNN health, Yahoo health and CBS health feed for testing purpose.



Do you think I am doing something wrong somewhere?



Thanks

G

[Allegro]

oh boy, when i break through one wall, the next one - even bigger - is waiting for me...

so, every eight hours is post added to my blog - so far, so good!
i added the keywords that should be linked as regular expressions via the format (keyword1|keyword2|keyword3|...|keyword20) in wp-o-matic, and the new post should have some links in it... but it hasnt!
keith, do you add every keyword into a seperate box or do you use the RegEx function?

Well, when i finally work this stuff out i will make a report/ebook out of it lol.

[Evita]

Uh.oh...

All of a sudden when you click on the headline of the post on my homepage it takes you directly to the original article. It does not link to my own internal page.
I must have changed something but an hour of searching haven't given me where I went wrong..... help??

How do we link to the original article as well as our own internal page? Which we should be, correct? (Linking to the original article)

How can we have the outgoing links to original articles nofollow and links to our own sites, or links that we have sold as dofollow?

If we don't do a nofollow on all those links linking back to the original article we will be leaking a ton of PR juice.

I also set to fetch 7 posts, but ended up getting 65!!

Evita

[Allegro]

the "fetch" number is on a per feed basis. so if you have 9 feeds, you would get your 63 postings.

and for the titles: go to your campaigns tab, edit your current campaign, switch to the options tab and scroll down. uncheck "Post title links to source?".

[jbreezy]

I installed Wordpress via Fantastico into a subdomain on my Lunar Pages server and when I go to add a new post nothing shows up. What am I doing wrong?

[tommygadget]

Originally Posted by Tim Dixon

Thanks Tommy for the tip about HE, I shall be using them very soon (through your affiliate link of course!).

Tim

Thanks Tim, I appreciate it. If you do, PM me, I have a gift for you

TomG.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Guru

1) getting rss feed provider which will provide long ( atleast 15-20 lines ) content. but as you suggested I should look more and I should be able to find that on google.

I tired so far yahoo feed, google news feed, google blog feed, ezinearticles.com feeds but i will look at more places and try to find good feeds.

They're out there - and if you have trouble finding them for your keywords, there are a couple of things that *may* work for you. First, if you're finding relevant content in the news feeds, try going directly to the source and pulling feeds from there. Also, if you can't find longer content for your keywords, try to find content from your broader niche and see if doing a word replacement makes sense. For example, you can generally replace the phrase "losing weight" with "weight loss" and it will still make sense. Be careful with this though, because you'll need to keep an eye on your content in case your replacements DON'T make sense - it's an obvious indicator that you're an automated blog. For longer content, try rss mountain and content4reprint mentioned above, too.

Originally Posted by Guru

2) Second major problem is updating the blog using wp-o-matic using word press/cron etc..

In one of my test blog I used WP-o-matic internal function for cron job ( unix base ) I just clicked on the check box ( which was there ) and after that it should be doing itself ( I guess )

To be clear, the unix cron checkbox must be UNCHECKED to attempt using the Wordpress loop to run the update. I think this is why it wasn't working for you in this scenario. It fetches the first time you set up any campaign, but if the cron isn't firing, you won't get any additional updates.

Originally Posted by Guru

Now after it didn't work I started new blog and didn't do that unix based cron in WPOP and install utopia cron plugin. and asked it to read my cron page every 15 minutes to fetch 2 rss feed and post in the blog but even after few hours only post I got, which I fetched at the time of creating campaigns.. ( so same problem )

Hmm. That's more frequently than I update, but it should still work. If your blog doesn't
get any traffic yet, you need to visit your blog yourself to get it to fire. Once you have traffic and spiders coming in, it'll just fire itself. Sorry you're having such trouble with it. Perhaps try one of the other alternative methods mentioned in the post if you're having problems.

Originally Posted by Allegro

oh boy, when i break through one wall, the next one - even bigger - is waiting for me...

so, every eight hours is post added to my blog - so far, so good!
i added the keywords that should be linked as regular expressions via the format (keyword1|keyword2|keyword3|...|keyword20) in wp-o-matic, and the new post should have some links in it... but it hasnt!
keith, do you add every keyword into a seperate box or do you use the RegEx function?

Well, when i finally work this stuff out i will make a report/ebook out of it lol.

I don't know how to do regular expressions, so I do each keyword separately. I keep meaning to learn and experiment with that feature though. Let me know if you get it working. Also, you can just wait until I complete MY report and be an affiliate. I'm much prefer that than having you steal my ideas and make a report of your own. It doesn't make me really inclined to help you out if you tell me that, dig?

Originally Posted by Evita

Uh.oh...

All of a sudden when you click on the headline of the post on my homepage it takes you directly to the original article. It does not link to my own internal page.
I must have changed something but an hour of searching haven't given me where I went wrong..... help??

How do we link to the original article as well as our own internal page? Which we should be, correct? (Linking to the original article)

How can we have the outgoing links to original articles nofollow and links to our own sites, or links that we have sold as dofollow?

If we don't do a nofollow on all those links linking back to the original article we will be leaking a ton of PR juice.

I also set to fetch 7 posts, but ended up getting 65!!

Evita

There's a setting in the campaign configuration - I believe a checkbox - for making your titles link back to your own post instead of the original. Just make sure you have that configured correctly.

If you're wanting to nofollow all external links, there are plugins for that. I haven't tested this one, but it will likely work for what you want:

External Links Plugin For WordPress

Generally speaking though, I haven't had to do this. Although again, I'm not a PR expert and am trying to learn more so I can apply it to the technique.

Hope that helps!

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by jbreezy

I installed Wordpress via Fantastico into a subdomain on my Lunar Pages server and when I go to add a new post nothing shows up. What am I doing wrong?

I can't tell because you haven't given me enough information to know what part you're stuck at. Try to be more specific and I'll help you as best I can.

[Alminc]

I discuss the IP problem on my IM blog. Go to the hosting page and see. I use HE because they give me 16 domains with 16 unique IPs.

TomG.

I know that I can get 10 IP adresses for $67/month at seohosting.com.
There are similar prices everywhere else.

How much are you paying for 16 IPs ? Is that a package, or is it your personal deal with them at HE ?

Almin

[Allegro]

keith, the lol at the end was supposted to mark it as a joke. i'm really bad at writing, so i never would do an ebook
but im going to be your affiliate when i set up an automated blog in the make money online niche, just pm me here on the board

[Alminc]

Plugins GoCodes and W-P-O-Matic don't work with
explorer in admin, firefox is required.

Is it only admin part , or don't they work at all
with explorer, even on the front side ?

[davo]

Guru:

If you are using either of the two Cron options (Simplified and Traditional Unix format) from within Cpanel, there is a space for you to enter your email address.

Place your email in there, and Cron will sent you an email every time it triggers the command you set.

It is great for debugging, and making sure Cron is working okay.

When you are sick of getting the emails, log back in thru Cpanel and remove the email address from the form.

Cheers,
Davo

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Alminc

Plugins GoCodes and W-P-O-Matic don't work with
explorer in admin, firefox is required.

Is it only admin part , or don't they work at all
with explorer, even on the front side ?

It must only be the admin part - my sites look fine in FF and IE - honestly though, I only use FF and never bother to do any admin or setup in IE - I just check the live sites to see that they work. With my versions of both browsers, the blogs themselves are just fine.

I don't see how the function of the plugins would be limited by IE, anyways. As a marketer, you should be using FF. However, you should make sure your IE users can see your stuff, too!

But don't fret - I just conducted a test to double check, and for the user, both plugins work 100% with IE or FF. (At least the versions I have).

Hope that helps, and sorry for the confusion!

[Peter Johnston]

Is this stuff still on offer?

[jbreezy]

keith -

basically i have a subdomain where I want to host a blog. i installed wordpress via my control panel with fantastico and got to my WP Admin panel and write a post. Then I go to write a blog entry and it doesn't show up.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by jbreezy

keith -

basically i have a subdomain where I want to host a blog. i installed wordpress via my control panel with fantastico and got to my WP Admin panel and write a post. Then I go to write a blog entry and it doesn't show up.

I don't put WP onto subdomains, so I don't really have any insight into why the posts aren't showing up. Are you hitting "Publish" or just "Save" when you compose a post?

Sorry you're having trouble. Hope I can help sort it out.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Peter Johnston

Is this stuff still on offer?

There's nothing "on offer" here, friend. The whole shebang is here in the thread. I'm working on something a little more detailed, but for now, here's the whole enchilada!

(You really don't need more than this if you're a self-starter and familiar with using Wordpress and blogs and RSS.)

Sorry to disappoint.

[Guru]

Originally Posted by davo

Guru:

If you are using either of the two Cron options (Simplified and Traditional Unix format) from within Cpanel, there is a space for you to enter your email address.

Place your email in there, and Cron will sent you an email every time it triggers the command you set.

It is great for debugging, and making sure Cron is working okay.

When you are sick of getting the emails, log back in thru Cpanel and remove the email address from the form.

Cheers,
Davo

Hi KK and Davo,

Thanks for your reply..
I am not running cron job in cpanel ( as I was not even knowing about this but after Davo mentioned above I went and checked in cpanel and its looks very easy in cpanel also )

I am running cron using utopia pluin and I am putting this URL there ..

hxxp://domainname.c0m/testblog2/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cron.php?code=9d657412


and then putting 15m ( just to check if i can get feeds else I can understand i should put there long period )


I think i have to put same URL in cpanel cron area also if i want to use that option instead of utopia..

is there any way to run cron job once and it will just fetch post from one campaign feed and leave other campaign feed alone without fetching any feed from them?

Thanks

G

[danto2]

Keith:
Your business model sounds great, but way over my head. I wonder if you and I can exchange specialties. Mine is Income Taxes (former Revenue Agent) and Real Estate (Recently purchased home..full price $11k and rented it for $650) Can show you how if you help me with internet marketing.

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by danto2

KEITH:
I AM NEW TO WARRIOR. I AM A CONSULTANT FOR REAL ESTATE AND TAXES AND I WOULD LIKE TO EXCHANGE YOUR IDEAS FOR ONLINE BUSINESS FOR MY EXPERTISE ON REAL ESTATE.
FOR EXAMPLE..MY WIFE AND I JUST PURCHASED A SINGLE HOME IN DAYTON OH FOR $11K AND RENTED IT OUT FOR $650 A MONTH.

Originally Posted by danto2

Keith:
Your business model sounds great, but way over my head. I wonder if you and I can exchange specialties. Mine is Income Taxes (former Revenue Agent) and Real Estate (Recently purchased home..full price $11k and rented it for $650) Can show you how if you help me with internet marketing.

Sorry Robert, I'm not interested in your colorful offer at this time. Thanks, though!

[Alminc]

Keith,

How many keywords and in what format do you put
into w-p-o-matic.

In Add Campaign/Rewrite there is option to use boxes
separately for each keyword and url, but the help file also says:

Regular expressions

For advanced users, regular expressions are supported. Using this will allow you to make more powerful replacements. Take multiple word replacements for example. Instead of using many rewriting boxes to replace ass and arse with butt, you can use the | operator: (ass|arse).

Say I wanto link 20 different keywords to 20 different urls, how shell I do?

Shell I use 20 boxes separately for each keyword, or shell I use 'regular
expressions'? I am confused about using regular expressions option
since the help file only gives instructions for keywords but not for urls.

If you are using regular expressions can you give me one example how to
do it?

Almin

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Alminc

Keith,

How many keywords and in what format do you put
into w-p-o-matic.

In Add Campaign/Rewrite there is option to use boxes
separately for each keyword and url, but the help file also says:




Say I wanto link 20 different keywords to 20 different urls, how shell I do?

Shell I use 20 boxes separately for each keyword, or shell I use 'regular
expressions'? I am confused about using regular expressions option
since the help file only gives instructions for keywords but not for urls.

If you are using regular expressions can you give me one example how to
do it?

Almin

I set up mostly with a single keyword/phrase per campaign, so I'll have maybe 3-5 link-based replacements max, but only if there are some closely related ones that make sense. Most of the time it's 1 to 1. 1 keyword, 1 campaign, 1 link.

However, there's no particular rhyme or reason I do it that way, it's just how I've gotten into the habit of doing it for now. I don't think it matters overall as long as you're not packing a single post full of links to tons of different places. Just try to keep it focused and looking like a real person is making the blog. I mean, you ARE a real person, but you know what I mean.

As far as the regular expression feature, as I explained above, I don't know how to do them, so I don't. I just do one word per box, and that works just fine.

Hope that helps!
KK

[Alminc]

Thanks Keith, that makes sense. It shouldn't
look like keyword staffing.


I have another questions about plugins.

What typical set of plugins are you using for
each blog? (wpomatic, gocodes, + .......)

Also, are you installing your blogs on different C-class IPs?
What would be good distribution of blogs over different IPs?

[Fernando Veloso]

Hi all, this is my first post in WF (didn't saw Introduction) so hi everybody!

All right, i saw this thread while surfing around and tested it but i have one problem.

The feeds from Google News doesn't work. Others do, but those from G doesn't. It fetches the data correctly from other places but the G ones simply don't work.

Maybe i don't use the correct path?

Thanks guys and a huge thank you to Keith

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Alminc

Thanks Keith, that makes sense. It shouldn't
look like keyword staffing.


I have another questions about plugins.

What typical set of plugins are you using for
each blog? (wpomatic, gocodes, + .......)

Also, are you installing your blogs on different C-class IPs?
What would be good distribution of blogs over different IPs?

No problem! As for your other questions:

1. For these kinds of blog, there's no "typical" set of plugins except for the core ones that run the system. Throughout the thread here I've mentioned a couple more that I use regularly, but there's no set standard. The only one I can think of that I install every time is the Lighter Admin Menus, but that's just to make the backend quicker to work with.

Then there are common goals I want to accomplish, but I don't always use the same method - like, I commonly use an SEO plugin, but not always the same one. Sometimes I use Headspace, sometimes, All in One SEO. Frequently I use an auto-tagger, but there are a couple I've tried and all work fine.

As part of my project of expanding and detailing this method, I'm going to include a list of plugins that I use, and that should be useful for marketing purposes, but as for right now, I don't have a standard set. In fact, I could probably do this a lot faster if I did get a core set and something like WP-Cloner or similar.

In the meantime, if you have a question about a particular plugin, or a particular goal you want to know if there is a plugin for, I can probably be of more help.

For your other question about IPs, I haven't bothered with that. Most of my blogs were started by me, and I'd say almost all of them are on the same deluxe hosting account, and likely all on the same server (I'm not that techie, but that seems like a likely guess).

Now if I were building a blog farm and cross-linking these, I probably WOULD want them moved elsewhere (or started elsewhere). Or if I was selling links or posts on them as a whole network, I'd want to eliminate as much physical relationship between the blogs as possible. But as it stand now, any link agreements I have are for one customer/one link/one site, so I'm not likely to be picked up as a link-seller.

The IP footprint is about not having all your backlinks coming from the same sites. With my method, your backlinks are coming in from outside, which is how a real site is supposed to behave.

Should I be using different accounts and IPs and all that? Maybe, but so far, it hasn't stopped anything from working. Would it be working better? Can't say - never tried it.

If you WANT to build a link farm/blog network strictly for selling links/posts, the easier way to go about it is to just buy existing stale, dead WP installs (or any kind of site, really) off bored site owners, and then drop my method in on top of them, and keep the same hosting as the original owner. That way there's no wasted effort looking for a ton of hosts so you can start at zero. Instead, you'll spend your research time finding blogs who have attributes that will help your network perform (old domains, existing cache, pre-indexed, etc.) and kill two birds with one stone. You'll end up with differentiated IPs as a side effect of using that method, and still get the bunch of blogs you want.

Hope that advice helps those wanting to go that route.

Originally Posted by scubita

Hi all, this is my first post in WF (didn't saw Introduction) so hi everybody!

All right, i saw this thread while surfing around and tested it but i have one problem.

The feeds from Google News doesn't work. Others do, but those from G doesn't. It fetches the data correctly from other places but the G ones simply don't work.

Maybe i don't use the correct path?

Thanks guys and a huge thank you to Keith

I don't have trouble pulling from Google News, but if you do, try different feeds. There are plenty of others to work with. In the support forums for WP-O-Matic, there are a few people who have had trouble pulling from GNews as well, but it's not an issue that's been resolved.

When you say "the G ones simply don't work" can you be more specific? If I know how it's failing I can *maybe* be of more help.

Thanks for your interest!

[richfit]

Great post! How about automating content? You can use WordPress Direct instead of using regular Word Press and begin automating content or dripping content over time using PLR articles or outsourced articles written for you over time.

Bryan Dulaney

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by richfit

Great post! How about automating content? You can use WordPress Direct instead of using regular Word Press and begin automating content or dripping content over time using PLR articles or outsourced articles written for you over time.

Bryan Dulaney

I hadn't heard of WordPress direct before, but I'll check it out and include it for review in my more detailed writeup. I'd hoped to have it done by this weekend, but work proceeds slowly. (Not too slowly though!)

Thanks for the tip!

[jbreezy]

having trouble finding feeds. my niche is finance info. how do i find the corresponding feeds that will auto update to my blog. right now it's a bunch of gibberish!

[Evita]

OK,

So I'm intent on not leaking a bunch of PR juice.

How would this work?

The plugin "nofollow reciprocity" comes loaded with around 1000 sites that will
automatically make the link a nofollow to those sites.

Now, you can add to the url's to include for instance clickbank.net

So, how easy would'nt it be to include the url's of our feeds? Saving a ton of link juice. Links to our main site, or to the site of a link buyer (is there such a term?) would then automatically be a dofollow.

Anyone see any holes in this let me know, please.

Evita

[jbreezy]

nm i figured it out. i'm getting some really short posts though. now i just gotta figure out GoCodes and a few other things and i'll be good.

[astoneuab]

I have a few blogs that follow a similar methodology. It's nice to get some "auto-pilot" income haha. Mine do well with adsense

[MalachaiGoodman]

So let me make sure I understand this.

1.) We duplicate a bunch of other people's content by automatically soaking it up off their RSS feed.

2.) We monotize that content (which the original author may have been trying to do with their own Affiliate Links / Adsense) by automatically ramming our affiliate links into specific keywords.

3.) As an added bonus, since we're building some nice PR there's a good chance our duplicated article will outrank the original author's article on Google.

I'm hoping that there's something I'm missing here... Am I correct about the basic business model here?

Sounds like a great idea! I'm off to find some cheap hosting!

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by MalachaiGoodman

So let me make sure I understand this.

1.) We duplicate a bunch of other people's content by automatically soaking it up off their RSS feed.

2.) We monotize that content (which the original author may have been trying to do with their own Affiliate Links / Adsense) by automatically ramming our affiliate links into specific keywords.

3.) As an added bonus, since we're building some nice PR there's a good chance our duplicated article will outrank the original author's article on Google.

I'm hoping that there's something I'm missing here... Am I correct about the basic business model here?

Sounds like a great idea! I'm off to find some cheap hosting!

Well, if you read the whole thread, you see several places where I advise on methods to add more value. It's not about just recycling content and making a spam blog. If you do this right, you can actually make a site that's:

A. Useful to the niche market - as a content aggregator you make it easier for people to find what they like in one place.

B. Useful to the sites you're syndicating - don't forget, my method includes backlinks to the original site AS WELL as to my own. These get re-syndicated by me. I'm probably building them way more backlinks than they do on on their own. Especially since I link to them frequently, and am going to go up in PR, they get the benefit of that, too.

C. Profitable for me (this is just a nice side effect of working with the method to make a DECENT site rather than just a splog.

And of course even though this is automated, you SHOULDN'T ignore it. Put contact info and a real profile on there. I'm not advising "pulling one over" or anything. You should run these sites in the open. I don't run full length content - I run snippets. I always link back to the original source. I even leave those links "dofollow"ed. (Now, others have asked how to do these things and I've advised them, but I've always clarified what I do myself in these cases - those are variations on my method, not actually included in my version.)

The way I like to think of it (whether this is justified is up to you) is that I'm marketing someone else's content for them (admittedly without permission, but using a resource THEY provide) and as a "fee" for that, I piggy-back my own stuff with it.

Most people that use blog automation DO use it the way you describe. I started out that way too, trying to build sites just for passive Adsense. Instead, I'm talking about actually making a new thing with that content, a thing that has value in and of itself. You can build decent, even GOOD sites with this. Use the power of automation to build the *right* kind of blog. It takes only slightly more effort than making a crappy splog, and has exponentially greater value and benefit.

But you can do it your way too. Just probably not so good for the karma.

Let me know if that clarifies things for you.

[vicone]

WordPress Direct looks really promising. From their website it appears they have 1500 themes available. Their version of WP can be set up on your own self-hosted account that draws content from links to their system. A few details from WordDirect.com

No More Duplicate Content . . . WordPress Direct scours the internet for topic-specific video, audio and article content and automatically combines it on your site to create a truly unique visitor experience.

No More PRESSURE to Update Your Site Daily. . . Simply click a few buttons and WordPress Direct will update your site as often or as rarely as you'd like.

I couldn't find a pricing structure but they offer a free membership which allows you to set up 3 free WP websites. They have different levels of membership with different levels of service provided.

Anyone know how good the service is and how much it costs?

Ivan

[Keith Kogane]

Originally Posted by Evita

OK,

So I'm intent on not leaking a bunch of PR juice.

How would this work?

The plugin "nofollow reciprocity" comes loaded with around 1000 sites that will
automatically make the link a nofollow to those sites.

Now, you can add to the url's to include for instance clickbank.net

So, how easy would'nt it be to include the url's of our feeds? Saving a ton of link juice. Links to our main site, or to the site of a link buyer (is there such a term?) would then automatically be a dofollow.

Anyone see any holes in this let me know, please.

Evita

I haven't used that plugin, but if I read it right, it automatically nofollows several prominent websites that don't really need the backlink love, and who don't actually reciprocate, correct?

And what you're suggesting is adding your own internal links so you nofollow yourself?

The real way to do what you're talking about is work with your templates and widgets in order to hard-code the nofollow in there if you don't want to leak PR internally. There may be a plugin that helps with this (nofollowing your own internal structure properly) but I haven't looked into it.

However, it's *possible* your method would work. It depends on the way the plugin was coded - if it will apply itself to ALL content including your template (doubtful) or if it only applies to your content (not really useful).

But try it out and see! There's only one way to know for sure and that's to TEST!

I'll add this to my list of things to investigate, too. Thanks for the idea!

[Vshep]

I was testing WP-o-Matic to grab the feeds and replace the words with links and so on. The trouble started when I also started to include a "Go to source" in the Custom post template section and had WP-o-Matic set up to auto link to the source. This was fine for the most part till one of the words I set up a relink for was ALSO in the source address for the RSS feed.

I went from a nice "Go to Source" link that worked to something that looks like this:

NFL/news/story?id=3723327&campaign=rss&source=NFLHeadlines” >Go to Source

Seems the re-linker also works on the out put of the Custom post template box.

Here is how I fixed, well worked around it would be the better term. The Cross-linker plug in listed earlier in the thread. The down side is that you cant set it per Campaign, it seems to be site wide or nothing for the most part. On the plus side it works on both the old and new posts. WP-o-Matic only works for the posts fetched AFTER you add a relink word to the Campaign. So its a toss up.

Anyway hoped it helped someone.

[Evita]

Originally Posted by Keith Kogane

I haven't used that plugin, but if I read it right, it automatically nofollows several prominent websites that don't really need the backlink love, and who don't actually reciprocate, correct?

And what you're suggesting is adding your own internal links so you nofollow yourself?

No, my thought was to add the url's of the rss feeds, or the sites the feeds are pulled from,I guess, to that list. That way we won't have 27 outgoing links when we pull 27 new posts from those feeds.

Our only outgoing links will be to our main site, if we feed to one, or to the site of a paid link.

Evita

[vicone]

There are some comments on another thread which appear to have relevance here:

JP Schoeffel has an RSS Aggregator plugin called WP-RSSAggregator that works very well.

He actually has 3 plugins that integrate nicely:

one for RSS - WP-RSSAggregator
one for articles - WP-PosterPeriodic
one for web 2.0 posting - Socialize It Pro

They all can be automated by cron jobs

There is also something called RSS Power Plus that no one has mentioned. Then, there are the higher end tools like Content Farmer and Autoblogger Pro that post xml as well as data in other formats. They give you more control over how and what they post.

RSS is actaully a family of technologies. Most people talk about it like it's one thing and it tends to create confusion.

jcaviani

The thread is here:

SEEKING a Wordpress Plugin to pull down RSS FEEDS?

Ivan

[jbreezy]

is there a random blog roll plugin?

[MalachaiGoodman]

Originally Posted by Keith Kogane

Well, if you read the whole thread, you see several places where I advise on methods to add more value. It's not about just recycling content and making a spam blog. If you do this right, you can actually make a site that's:

A. Useful to the niche market - as a content aggregator you make it easier for people to find what they like in one place.

B. Useful to the sites you're syndicating - don't forget, my method includes backlinks to the original site AS WELL as to my own. These get re-syndicated by me. I'm probably building them way more backlinks than they do on on their own. Especially since I link to them frequently, and am going to go up in PR, they get the benefit of that, too.

C. Profitable for me (this is just a nice side effect of working with the method to make a DECENT site rather than just a splog.

And of course even though this is automated, you should ignore it. Put contact info and a real profile on there. I'm not advising "pulling one over" or anything. You should run these sites in the open. I don't run full length content - I run snippets. I always link back to the original source. I even leave those links "dofollow"ed. (Now, others have asked how to do these things and I've advised them, but I've always clarified what I do myself in these cases - those are variations on my method, not actually included in my version.)

The way I like to think of it (whether this is justified is up to you) is that I'm marketing someone else's content for them (admittedly without permission, but using a resource THEY provide) and as a "fee" for that, I piggy-back my own stuff with it.

Most people that use blog automation DO use it the way you describe. I started out that way too, trying to build sites just for passive Adsense. Instead, I'm talking about actually making a new thing with that content, a thing that has value in and of itself. You can build decent, even GOOD sites with this. Use the power of automation to build the *right* kind of blog. It takes only slightly more effort than making a crappy splog, and has exponentially greater value and benefit.

But you can do it your way too. Just probably not so good for the karma.

Let me know if that clarifies things for you.

I understand where your coming from...

A while back I started a niche blog and really put my heart and soul into it. If I create a piece of content I generally take great pride in it. I obsess over every word. I want to be as clear as possible.

The issue was that every time I made a post an annoying Splogger copied it. My blog was young (approximately 3 months old). I was really trying to build momentum. Unfortunately, the Splog always seemed to have a better PR than I did.

In other words, I did all the work and the Splogger ate my lunch. That got old.

Eventually I gave up, deleted my site, and let the domain expire. Soon after the Splog went down too. I'm guessing one of the other people he was ripping off got to him.

In retrospect there's a lot I should have done differently. I should have tried to outlast the splogger, built strong backlinks, and possibly approached Google about the problem. I had little to no understanding of SEO though and honestly felt helpless. I got burned on IM for a long while.

I can appreciate the difference in what your doing. Only pulling excerpts, providing backlinks, adding value, etc... I'm still not sure how I feel about it, but it's ultimately your business. I can appreciate that you're at least trying to be ethical about your approach.

;-)

[jbreezy]

i can't find my .htaaccess file for Wordpress. I have several other .htaaccess files on my hosting server but none that have the Wordpress plugin. Therefore I can't get GoCodes to run properly.

Anyone have any advice?

[Vshep]

Originally Posted by jbreezy

i can't find my .htaaccess file for Wordpress. I have several other .htaaccess files on my hosting server but none that have the Wordpress plugin. Therefore I can't get GoCodes to run properly.

Anyone have any advice?

You should be able to paste the GoCodes info into the one that's at the base of your domain. Ie domain.com and not domain.com/somewhere_else. If it does not work there try one in your word press install directory. It does not matter if it does not have the word press lines. If a .htaaccess file isent there just make one, just take a normal text file rename it as .htaacess and upload it.

This should work for most of the time but as each hosting / person has thier files set up differently it may not work for everyone.

[Alminc]

Keith ( and others using wpomatic),

Here is the solution for eliminating duplicate posts.
This works not only for wpomatic, but for all duplicate
posts.

For wp 2.6.x :

Open the file /wp-includes/post.php

and find this code on line 1333:

if ($post_name_check || in_array($post_name, $wp_rewrite->feeds) ) {
$suffix = 2 ;

and replace $suffix=2; with return 0;


Save the file.

Now when wordpress detects a duplicate post it will not
post it, duplicate posts are ignored.

Try to post manually two identical posts, you will see
that only one post is published, even if it says in admin that
both posts are posted.


Almin

[jbreezy]

Originally Posted by Vshep

You should be able to paste the GoCodes info into the one that's at the base of your domain. Ie domain.com and not domain.com/somewhere_else. If it does not work there try one in your word press install directory. It does not matter if it does not have the word press lines. If a .htaaccess file isent there just make one, just take a normal text file rename it as .htaacess and upload it.

This should work for most of the time but as each hosting / person has thier files set up differently it may not work for everyone.

Okay, I'll try that. I don't think the one at the root directory is doing anything because i'm not getting any links.

[Allegro]

haha i had the same thing with my links (that the url gets ****ed up)... also, dont keyword the trigger for gocodes, else the gocodes url will be posted with the keyword linked rofl...

i think i will use that blog to toy around with the tools and to experiment and take a more serious approach on the next blog i create... i think im going to do one blog a week - one blog per weekend starting in december or january...